It's Turkey Lurkey Time!

"Everybody loves a winner, but nobody loves a flop," sings Eve Harrington in the second act of Applause, but with all due respect to lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green, one thing web sites like BroadwayWorld help prove is that no matter how many harsh reviews a show gets and no matter how low the grosses plunge there are always those who proudly proclaim that they loved Times Square's latest financial fiasco.

So on this day when Americans enjoy their turkey, let's take a moment to be thankful for the Broadway turkeys that we've nevertheless enjoyed.

I'll start the parade with two of my favorites that both closed on opening night:

Onward Victoria: Bookwriter/lyricists Charlotte Anker and Irene Rosenberg and composer Keith Herrmann turned the story of Victoria Woodhull, who ran for the United States presidency in 1872 with a platform declaring that sexual equality begins in the bedroom, into a lighthearted romp, creating a forbidden romance between the candidate and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, who publicly denounced her as "The Wicked Woodhull." Jill Eikenberry was just charming in the title role, with funnyman Lenny Wolpe as exasperated restaurateur Charlie Delmonico and Jim Jansen in a hilarious song and dance turn as the infamous public moralist Anthony Comstock.

Dance A Little Closer: Yes, yes I know this one was nicknamed "Close a Little Faster," but give a listen to the cast album and you hear some gorgeous Charles Strouse melodies. And while Alan Jay Lerner's lyrics may stumble a bit now and then, much of it shines with his erudite elegance. Len Cariou was just splendid as the nightclub entertainer stuck in a Swiss ski lodge while a cold war standoff taking place nearby threatens to ignite World War III. And I'm quite certain that when Brent Barrett and Jeff Keller sang "Why Can't The World Go And Leave Us Alone" it was the first time gay characters sang a love song in a Broadway musical. Certainly the first time it was done on ice skates. Over 26 years ago this musical depicted a gay couple who insisted they should have the right to marry each other, and with the beautiful song "Anyone Who Loves" Strouse and Lerner asked, "Why not?"

Now it's your turn. Tell us about some of Broadway's biggest turkeys that gave you a terrific time at the theatre.

"Go away or I shall release the dogs," a large figure with his back to the audience growls at whoever is knocking at his door.

"Back! Back! The plague's here!," he warns with a familiar animation in his voice before turning around and revealing his full face and figure to the audience. And at that moment you'll be forgiven if you think you're seeing a ghost. With his long white and grey beard he resembles the ghost of Tevye, the dairyman more than that of Pseudolous, the Roman slave or Max Bialystock, the Broadway producer, but in manner, voice and mind he is unmistakably Zero Mostel.

When playing a well-known celebrity, many actors are said to have captured the essence of their subjects rather than achieve an exact impersonation. In his solo piece Zero Hour, playwright/actor Jim Brochu does both. A man of Mostelian girth sporting that unusual comb-over that somehow resembles a crown atop his head, Brochu strikingly looks the part. Add to that the soothingly soft voice that can abruptly explode into a volcanic bellow, the graceful light-footedness and that flexible face featuring eyebrows that can arch on demand and you have a remarkably accurate recreation.

Directed with simplicity by Piper Laurie, Brochu sets his play in Mostel's West 28th Street art studio (designed with appropriate clutter by Josh Iacovelli), where the great actor and comedian, who always considered himself to be a painter first, would spend his most creatively fulfilling hours. It is shortly before he's to leave for Philadelphia to begin out-of-town tryouts for Arnold Wesker's The Merchant, a pro-Jewish reimagining of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice which he would perform in only once before dying from an aortic aneurysm, and he's being interviewed by an unseen reporter for a New York Times feature.

The scenario allows us to see Mostel as the public remembers him; an outrageously larger than life figure who is continually performing and will do anything for a laugh. His humor can straddle the border of good taste (He answers a phone call with, "Palestinian Anti-Defamation League, this is Yasser speaking.") and often gets downright smutty (a joke about his army physical is a classic) but Brochu, in both his text and performance, never allows us to forget that this is a man who has been hurt deeply and uses jokes as both a defense and a weapon of attack.

He talks of being disowned by his mother for marrying a gentile, a situation that would haunt him as he prepared to play out the same situation in Fiddler on the Roof. There are happier stories of his courtship with his second wife, Kate, and of his early career as a stand-up performing with Billie Holliday at Café Society, but the event that dominates his life and the play is the Red Scare of Senator Joseph McCarthy, which led to Mostel and many of his colleague friends being blacklisted. The playwright/performer recreates Zero Mostel's testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, but the most fascinating part of the tale is how the actor was able to put politics aside when producer Harold Prince and director George Abbott approached him about having Jerome Robbins, who named names before the committee, come in to help fix A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to The Forum when the musical was having a shaky out-of-town tryout.Having fond memories of meeting the play's subject several times, the playwright naturally presents him in a very favorable light, but Brochu does hint that Mostel's side of any story might not be entirely truthful. For example, in the film The Front, Mostel played a character loosely based on his close friend, blacklisted actor Phil Loeb. In describing a real-life incident involving Loeb, Mostel speaks of the way it was depicted in the movie as if it were fact. When the reporter challenges his accuracy, Brochu has him respond with, "You're asking an actor for the truth?" Later on, he has Mostel quote a famous quip of Larry Gelbart's regarding the difficulty of trying out a musical on the road, falsely crediting the line as being said during the gestation of ...Forum.

But Brochu's intention seems to be to paint a portrait depicting the artist as he might like to be remembered; brilliant, defiant and highly entertaining.

Patti Colombo is the most exciting musical theatre choreographer I've seen since Tommy Tune.

More on her later but I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget to write that.

If there ever was a musical comedy that perfectly demonstrates the amalgamation of arts that makes the genre a perfect expression of American creativity, it's On The Town. The musical's roots go back to Paul Cadmus' controversial 1934 painting The Fleet's In!, which inspired Ballet Theatre soloist Jerome Robbins and wunderkind New York Philharmonic conductor Leonard Bernstein to create the ballet Fancy Free. With downtown revue writers Betty Comden and Adolph Green on board to pen the book and lyrics and musical comedy master George Abbott set to direct, the ballet was expanded to an explosive mixture of highbrow and lowbrow featuring knockabout comedy, dynamic interpretive ballets and symphonic pop music propelling lyrics that remain fresh, funny and heart-on-sleeve touching. I can't think of a better musical comedy than On The Town and The Paper Mill's sterling new production allows every feature of this stellar creation to sparkle.

On the surface, its story of three sailors far away from home plopped in New York for a 24 hour leave who each meet a gal more than willing to show her appreciation for our boys in uniform can seem like little more than frisky frolics. But when the musical opened in 1944, the year the show is set, World War II was still raging. For all these young boys know, this could be the last day of freedom they have to squeeze every possible bit of fun out of life before being sent out somewhere to meet with a tragically early end.

From its opening hymn for early-risers, "I Feel Like I'm Not Out Of Bed Yet," to its closing confirmation that New York, New York will ever remain a hell of a town - sandwiching such first-rank theatre songs as the heartbreaking "Lonely Town," (anyone who isn't moved by Bernstein's subtle key changes throughout the melody simply has no soul), the madcap "Carried Away," and the raucously swinging "I Can Cook, Too" - On The Town's shining score takes simple emotions to rapturous wths, both comedic and sentimental. The mounting joy of "Lucky to Be Me," the conversational give and take in "Come Up to My Place" and the bittersweet optimism of "Some Other Time" represent musical theatre writing at its plot and character driven finest and conductor Tom Helm and his 16 musicians beautifully bring out the orchestrations' varied emotions.

Set designer Walt Spangler surrounds those musicians with a downstage runway that helps director Bill Berry capture the frenzied pace of a Gotham that's in perpetual motion. Characters leap, dive and frantically stride to their destinations (usually someone of the opposite sex) in a manner that makes the assortment of interpretive ballets and dance sequences seem like natural extensions of New York's movement.

Which brings me to choreographer Patti Colombo, whose extraordinary work I've previously seen in Paper Mill's productions of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers and Kiss Me, Kate. Colombo's dances are brimming with the humor and youthful buoyancy so abundant in the text and music. Sure, she quotes Robbins' iconic pictures on occasion, but the comedy she brings to the "Presentation of Miss Turnstiles," the giddy goofiness she adds to "Lucky To Be Me" and the stunning elegance of "The Imaginary Coney Island" demonstrate her talent as a dance dramatist who can build from character and situation and wordlessly expand on the story and music.

And this production has been cast with legitimate triple threats in the six main roles; performers who not only can act and sing but who are smack in the middle of the dance routines. Tyler Haynes is a sweet-singing romantic as Gabey, the sailor who falls for a photograph of "Miss Turnstiles for June" displayed in a subway car and sets out on a city-wide quest to find her. As the object of his crush, Yvette Tucker is a sunny girl next door as Ivy, the aspiring singer and dancer who is comically under-talented in real life but dreamy perfection in Gabey's imagination.

Brash and hilarious Jen Cody is a riot as the sailor-happy cab driver Hildy, using her short stature and dancing chops to great comedic advantage as she propels herself at the intimidated Chip (Brian Shepard). Her knock-out rendition of "I Can Cook, Too" begs the question of why this talented dynamo is not playing larger roles on Broadway. Shepard is an excellent foil to her lustful pursuits, particularly when her screeching taxi routinely knocks him about in circles.

In the roles Comden and Green wrote for themselves, Kelly Sullivan mixes prim intelligence with uncontrollable lust as anthropologist Claire de Loone, with Jeffrey Schecter cheerfully receiving her man-hungry urges as Ozzie, the sailor whose primitive-looking mug causes her to get carried away. The scene where they meet shows off the bookwriters' prowess for comedy that mixes smarts with shtick and the two of them play it with crackerjack timing.

In supporting roles, Harriet Harris brings her off-center daffiness to Madame Dilly, Ivy's hard-drinking voice teacher, and Bill Nolte is wonderfully erudite as Claire's cuckolded fiancé, singing the mock-aria, "I Understand" with a rich basso. Tari Kelly also contributes some big laughs, tripling as Hildy's perpetually sneezing roommate and as a pair of the world's most depressing nightclub torch singers.

Set designer Walt Spangler depicts Manhattan's skyline with shadowy towers that are lit with jazzy tones by Tom Sturge. Locations like The Museum of Natural History, Coney Island and the inside of a subway train are presented with imagination and color. David C. Woolard's costumes show a broadly stylish view of 1940s urban fashion.

On The Town has not been especially lucky when it comes to Broadway revivals with two significantly revised attempts lasting only two months each. Last year's Encores! concert production was a delight, but a trip to Paper Mill these days offers this sublime creation in a damn near perfect mounting. Go and have yourself a hell of a time.

Playgoers leaving the Alvin Theatre after opening night of Girl Crazy back in 1930 had no way of knowing it, but they had just seen one Broadway's most historic evenings. Not only was George Gershwin himself conducting the orchestra, as was the composer's custom at openings of his new shows, but playing in the pit were future giants of American popular music, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, and Jack Teagarden. On stage was Roger Edens as a saloon pianist. The score they played included three future American songbook classics, "Embraceable You," "But Not For Me," and "I Got Rhythm." The ingénue was some 19-year-old up and comer named Ginger Rogers. (The producers introduced her to some guy named Fred Astaire to help with her choreography.) And in a supporting role was this 21-year-old kid formerly known as Ethel Zimmerman, making her Broadway debut.

The debut of Ms. Zimmerman, whose moniker was shortened to Merman, of course, is probably what earns Girl Crazy a pedigree that's a bit beyond the show's actual accomplishments. The decade ahead would see the Broadway musical flourish with biting wit and satirical edge but Girl Crazy -- which premiered in between the openings of two of the Gershwins' more accomplished satirical operettas, Strike Up The Band and Of Thee I Sing -- was more typical of the 1920s style of innocuous entertainment that was meant to showcase songs and the familiar routines of popular comics. This time it's a typically fluffy story of a New York playboy whose father sends him out to a town in Arizona with an extreme shortage of women in order to cure him of being "girl crazy." Naturally he meets and falls for the only female in town, while sending for his showgirl friends from New York to help him open a dude ranch with a nightclub.

Dialect comedian Willie Howard, playing the cab driver who takes the fellow from Gotham to the desert and winds up becoming the town's sheriff, was the most famous star of the show's original cast, and much of Guy Bolton and Jack McGowan's book featured bits utilizing his heavy Jewish accent, including a routine where he communicated with a group of Native Americans by speaking in Yiddish. Since such comedy might not fare well with a contemporary audience, the David Ives concert adaptation of the show used for this weekend's Encores! staging of Girl Crazy is heavily edited and reconfigured a bit. Most scenes are boiled down to song cues and director Jerry Zaks zips them along until it's time to sing another Gershwin melody or to have Warren Carlyle's athletically-inclined dancers exuberantly show their stuff.

Of course, when there is little substance to offer, many a musical comedy can succeed by being a showcase for performers with charm and style. Unfortunately, there's little of it present in this production. Chris Diamantopoulos, as the love happy New Yorker, sings and dances nicely but is pleasant at best. Playing his love interest, Becki Newton, who has no professional stage credits in her bio, stridently sings out her numbers but offers little in the way of lyric interpretation. Though the two are married in real life, there are no romantic sparks emitted by their stage work.

Certainly it wouldn't be fair to expect any actress playing saloon entertainer Frisco Kate to create the same kind of excitement as Ethel Merman did when she originated the role, but the main problem with Anna Gasteyer's performance is that, although she belts out the joyous "I Got Rhythm," the saucy "Sam and Delilah" and the mock-torchy "Boy! What Love Has Done to Me!" with solid pipes (including holding the former's famous 16-measure note), she never seems to be enjoying herself up there. She's technically fine, though she can use a little more variety in her lyric interpretation, but lacking in that musical comedy verve that draws an audience in.

Not using a Jewish accent, Wayne Knight conveys a sense of fun in his silly role as cab driver Gieber Goldfarb, whose life is on the line as soon as he accepts the position of sheriff. Though he speak-sings most of his part in the pseudo-heroic "Goldfarb! That's I'm!" (a lyrical spoof of George M. Cohan's "Harrigan (That's Me)") he displays a nice singing voice for "But Not for Me" and would make a fine addition to Broadway's list of musical theatre comic character men.

Also conveying a sense of fun is the always delightful Marc Kudisch, who is unfortunately saddled with a small role as Kate's husband. The running gag of how the only way he can make her happy is by giving her a divorce never quite delivers a payoff but at least he gets to clown around a bit with a group of chorus gals for "Treat Me Rough"; one of those sparkling Gershwin songs that has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the story.

But despite the production's flaws, the mission of Encores! is to feature the music and Rob Fisher's 28-piece orchestra brings out the period zest and romance of Robert Russell Bennett's orchestrations and George Gershwin's embraceable melodies.

Two years ago I gave a very favorable write-up to Terell Alvin McCraney's, The Brothers Size, a blue collar poetic theatre piece that gave a contemporary edge to West African mythology. The play began life as a class assignment at Yale University's School of Drama and then made the move to the Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival with its original Yale director, Tea Alagic and her cast all intact.

Set in the Louisiana Bayou, the play tells the simple story of hard working auto mechanic Ogun Size, who can't hide his frustration with younger brother Oshoosi, a recent parolee who isn't especially anxious to get a job. Complicating matters is that Oshoosi has taken up with his old prison buddy, the drug dealing Elegba.

What I admired back then was how the play used the traditions of ceremonial story-telling to tell a modern tale. With the characters all named for Yoruban deities, the play was primarily performed inside a circle of sand with a small pile of rocks in the center and a percussionist was stationed to the side, supplying sound effects and rhythmic drumming that enhanced the rhythms of the playwright's language. The actors were all shirtless, reinforcing a connection with a more primitive era.

The Brothers Size is back at the Public, this time as one third of McCraney's trilogy, The Brother/Sister Plays, but under new director Robert O'Hara the play is presented in a more realistic manner. Gone are the sand, the rocks, and the percussionist and on go the shirts. Gone also is a good deal of the adventurous theatricality of the one-act piece. McCraney's voice as a playwright is still an interesting one, especially in his practice of having the characters narrate their actions before performing them. Dreams, the sage wisdom of elders and the power of nature are a few of the story-telling tools he uses to fine effect but O'Hara's rather earthbound direction points out where the author overwrites and the piece, while intriguing, still underwhelms.

It's a more serious problem for Marcus; Or The Secret of Sweet, which follows The Brother's Size and is also directed by O'Hara. This one concerns a 16-year-old boy who has begun opening up to others about being "sweet" (gay) and wants to find out if his father was the same. His rejecting mother, the girl who wants to date him (but is offended by his just wanting to be friends) and the older man who introduces him to sex all come off as ridiculous stereotypes when stripped of any mythological components and inhabiting an otherwise naturalistic setting. Attempts at humor stick out like bad one-liners. ("You're the only one I could sing The Wiz straight through with.")

Tina Landau has much greater success with her direction of In The Red and Brown Water, a full-length play which is presented separately from the other two. Here, high school track star Oya (though the character is barren she is named for a fertility goddess) turns down a scholarship and a spot on a college team because she fears her mother's death is coming soon and she wants to be there for her until the end. Looking for comfort, she falls into disappointing relationships with men.

Beginning the play with a striking lighting effect by Peter Kaczorowski, where an empty bucket pours out a shimmering pool of water, Landau stages beautifully stylized pictures utilizing an upstage chorus that, aside from playing various roles, chants, dances and plays drums in a manner that mixes the modern with the legendary.

While the three plays share some characters, they each stand on their own. And while taking in the connections within the trio enhances each piece, sitting through the entire four and a half hours makes the project's need for editing very apparent.

Fortunately the cast is very good, with Andre Holland standing out as the charismatic Elegba and the shy Marcus. Kianne Muschett beautifully handles the balance between Oya's girlish joy and the pain she experiences growing into a woman. Kimberly Hebert Gregory is very amusing as the plain-speaking Aunt Elegua, who always says what you don't want her to say. And there is excellent teamwork in the frustrated bonding between Marc Damon Johnson, as Ogun Size, and Brian Tyree Henry, as his slacker brother Oshoosi.

I had the immense pleasure of taking another visit to Grover's Corners, New Hampshire last week, via the fascinating David Cromer production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town that opened in February at the Barrow Street Theatre. Back then I wrote that the director's non-traditional take on the play - which remains completely faithful to the author's text and themes - was one of the most exciting theatre events of the season. On second look, with a mixture of new and old cast member, I'd say it's the best theatre production I know of currently playing in New York.

Wilder's gently experimental 1938 classic, where issues of love, marriage, community and our purpose in the universal scheme of things are presented through the everyday life occurrences in this unremarkable town, is perhaps the most familiar of all American dramas; being studied in public schools and performed by student and community theatres for decades. And while the countless number of times this play has been produced makes it impossible to guess if Cromer's vision is a completely untried idea, I think it's safe to say you're not likely to run into another Our Town that so vividly connects contemporary audiences with material from over seventy years ago.

As per Wilder's instructions in the script, this Our Town uses the traditional setting of a bare stage with nondescript tables and chairs serving as scenery. (It may seem like scenic designer Michele Spadaro hasn't much to do, but trust me, she earns her paycheck with this one.) The actors, as usual, mime their props while going about their daily routines of housework, homework and playtime. But while Cromer's production still takes place in the early years of the 20th Century, the director utilizes simple, but clever ideas to make a modern Manhattan audience feel a part of this sleepy little rural community. Customers at the reconfigured Barrow Street Theatre are seated on three sides of the small playing space, with wide room between the first and second rows where scenes are also played out. Costume designer Alison Siple dresses the company in contemporary clothing, though avoiding anything that may be distractingly modern, blending the appearance of those on stage with those watching. Lighting designer Heather Gilbert even keeps the house lights on for the first two acts. The evening often feels more like a town hall meeting than a night at the theatre,

Replacing Cromer as the narrating character Wilder calls the Stage Manager, Jason Butler Harner, who appears to be somewhere in his mid-20s, is certainly the youngest looking actor I've seen play the role in a professional production. Like his predecessor, he foregoes the traditionally homespun interpretation, displaying an emotionally detached efficiency as he keeps the play moving along. But there are extremely effective moments -- like when he takes a long pause to observe the beauty of a butternut tree and consider its later significance -- when he hints at being truly moved by the story he tells. And the night I attended he connected with the audience with warm silence as patches of viewers responded with knowing laughs after his character says, "Most everybody in the world gets married. You know what I mean?"

The early scenes echo the Stage Manager's emotional distance as we witness the daily morning clockwork in the homes of newspaper editor Charles Webb (a grimly-mannered Ken Marks) and his neighbor, Dr. Frank Gibbs (a distant Armand Schultz). Their wives, Julia Gibbs (Lori Myers) and Myrtle Webb (Kati Brazda), are machinelike in their routines of waking up the children, preparing breakfast and tending to their husbands; both of whom seem significantly older. In a town where "women vote indirect," nearly everyone is a member of the same religion and political party and 90% of the high school graduates stay put to live out their lives, Myers and Brazda nicely communicate the frustration their characters must feel with the sameness of their lives. Myers' Mrs. Gibbs seems especially acerbic toward her husband, a man who ignores her dream to visit Paris in favor of yearly vacations to the famous battle fields of the Civil War.

That same sense of dissatisfaction is evident in young Emily Webb, played with aggressive no-nonsense authority by Jennifer Grace. Despite being the smartest student in school, her Emily no doubt sees little future for herself beyond being someone's wife, so when neighbor George (played with thick-headed shyness by James McMenamin) reveals that he's set to inherit a farm after graduating high school she gradually softens her approach to this nice, but intellectually inferior guy who can bring her financial security.

All of this may seem a bit cold by description, but Cromer's interpretation perfectly leads to Wilder's third act warning to truly value the simple everyday things in our lives. And while it's perfectly acceptable to remind readers that this act has the now deceased Emily, who died in childbirth, accepting a chance to visit one day in her past, you'll have to experience for yourself the surprising and oh, so perfect way the director utilizes at least four, if not all five, of the audience's senses to pack an extra wallop into the play's climatic scene.

With Susan Bennett's amiable Mrs. Soames, Jeremy Bailer's emotionally troubled Simon Stimson and Ben Livingston's shyly soft-spoken Professor Willard among an outstanding ensemble, this Our Town mixes great character-driven humor, decent heart-tugging sentiment and stunning theatricality into a production that is truly -- let me say it once more -- an exciting event.

"After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are and that is the most horrible thing in the world." -- Oscar Wilde, regarding absinthe

The house lights go down. I mean all the way down. There's a pin spot on the conductor who is placed before 24 musicians in a real live orchestra pit. And in the blackness of the auditorium, with no videos or projections or actors doing business on stage, the overture to of one of the most gorgeous scores Broadway has ever heard warmly embraces the theatre, hinting at the joy to soon follow when they are matched with immensely clever, heartfelt and sensual lyrics. Finian's Rainbowis a great Broadway musical comedy.

Of course, if you only listen to Burton Lane's music and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg's lyrics, you might mistake Finian's Rainbow for a sentimental musical romance typical of the Rodgers and Hammerstein era; though certainly one with a superior score that mixes Irish folk, blues and gospel through the Broadway sifter. The subdued sexuality of "Old Devil Moon," the pure hopeful tenderness of "Look To The Rainbow," the breezy flippancy of "The Begat," the noble affection for home express in "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" and the fickle-hearted waltz, "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love (I Love The Girl I'm Near)" would be enough to make this a significant Broadway entry. But when you add the rapturous excitement of "If This Isn't Love," the snooty comedy in "When The Idle Poor Become The Idle Rich," the lyrical whimsy of "Something Sort of Grandish" and... well, I could just list the who darn score here... you have one of the most sumptuous collections of melody and gentle wit ever presented on a Broadway stage.

It's only when you consider the book, penned by Harburg and Fred Saidy, that you realize that in its premiere run a night at Finian's Rainbow was like attending a taping of one of the most sharply satirical editions of Saturday Night Live. Its story of an Irish immigrant who arrives in the American south (the Rainbow Valley section of the state of Missitucky, to be exact) to bury a pot of gold "borrowed" from a leprechaun in the ground near Fort Knox - because he's heard that just letting gold lie inactive in that ground rapidly increases its value - cheerfully spoofed the nature of the bustling American postwar economy ("We got something better than money! It's credit!"). But what made Finian's Rainbow really daring was when it asked us to laugh at those who would institute poll taxes and write segregation into our law books at a time when these practices were still going quite strong. Eight years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus and three months before Jackie Robinson first took the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Lane, Harburg and Saidy presented the American theatre with a white racist senator who, through the magic of a pot of gold, is accidentally changed into a black man and must consider facing the rest of his life being subjected to the kind of discrimination and hatred he used to enforce. And they made it funny.

Hopefully we're somewhat more advanced nowadays when it comes to race relations but the wondrously whimsical Broadway revival of Finian's Rainbow, a slightly altered transfer of the earlier Encores! concert staging, proves there's quite a bit in the material that still gets contemporary laughs; especially when the jokes remind us of just how fragile an economy built on credit can be. We can enjoy it when David Schramm, as the smug Senator Billboard Rawkins, arrogantly blurts out such absurdities as, "My whole family's been having trouble with immigrants ever since we came to this country," and even though some may get a tad uncomfortable during a scene where his new black servant (Tyrick Wiltez Jones) is taught the proper way to shuffle when he serves mint juleps, the comic payoff is a scream.

Director/choreographer Warren Carlyle's buoyant production boasts a loveable, strong singing cast headed by Jim Norton as a rascally comical Finian. As his brash daughter, Sharon and the strapping tobacco sharecropper Woody, Kate Baldwin and Cheyenne Jackson thickly fill the air with romantic musical theatre magic as she tenderly voices "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?" and "Look To The Rainbow" and the two of them simmer with sexual tension as they ponder that "Old Devil Moon."

Christopher Fitzgerald, a deft musical comedian who excels in impish roles, joins the company as Og the leprechaun. It's a perfect matching of actor and role as he physically and vocally hints at his character's own sexual tension; having lost his pot of gold, he's gradually becoming mortal and is going through the same kind of inconvenient discomfort that afflicts pubescent boys.

Though for decades productions of Finian's Rainbow have been using blackface makeup to accomplish the feat of changing the senator's skin color (a point that has caused some to declare the musical itself as being racially insensitive) more recent productions have been utilizing other means. Here Schramm's blustery fool is magically replaced by Chuck Cooper, who mourns the loss of his white identity until he finds friendship and good will with a gospel quartet in need of a new quarter. Both actors are also splendid new additions to this production, with Schramm heartily growling his nonsensical logic ("I don't have time to read The Constitution. I'm too busy defending it.") and Cooper, who gets precious little opportunity to display his dynamically deep vocals (but when he does, it's theatre-shaking), teaming up with Bernard Dotson, James Stoval and Devin Richards as they bring snappy harmony and precision classiness to a sensational rendition of "The Begat."

Also pretty sensational are the molasses thick vocals Terri White uses to fill the house with vibrancy as she leads the ensemble in the bluesy, "Necessity," and the airy grace and charisma of Alina Faye as Woody's mute sister Susan, who only communicates through dance.

Arthur Perlman provides an adaptation of the original book, which unfortunately cuts some significant moments; perhaps because they're the kind that would make a modern audience bristle a bit. (Like the scene where a young white lad asks the senator if his black friend is "the wrong color.") While I always prefer to see the material as the authors wrote it, Perlman's editing does allow the whimsical voice of the original to ring out strong and clear, ridiculing the notion that this is a musical with a creaky, impossibly dated book. There really is musical comedy magic in Rainbow Valley.

When it comes to hit musical comedies that don't stand a chance of ever being revived on Broadway, I'd have to rank Silk Stockings as one of my favorites. Based on Melchoir Lengyel's novel Ninotchka, which was turned into a Greta Garbo's first comedy film ("Garbo Laughs!, " screamed the advertisements.), this 1955 cold war tuner was the last Broadway entry for both Cole Porter and George S. Kaufman. And while it isn't exactly top tier material for either of these masters, it's still a dandy collection of clever, hummable songs and boffo gags from an era when professionally done fluff could send audiences off into the Times Square night with a big smile.

Now in their 12th season, Silk Stockings is the 54th small scale concert staging by that remarkable Obie-winning company Musicals Tonight!, specialists in presenting affordable revivals of lesser-known musicals that have rarely been seen since their original Broadway productions. Staged by resident director Thomas Sabella-Mills (who also supplies the simple, but show-bizy choreography), with music direction by David Caldwell, a winning cast delivers this time capsule of a show with great energy and panache.

Like so many Cole Porter shows, Silk Stockings is set in Paris, where a Russian classical composer/conductor on tour disobeys orders to return home when the opportunity arises to have themes from his masterwork, Ode to a Tractor, used as the underscoring for a Hollywood drama based on War and Peace. Three bumbling officials are sent to bring him back with a minimal amount of adverse publicity ("We must force him of his own free will to come back."), but when the boys are seduced by the Paris nightlife, Moscow sends a no-nonsense, humorless female comrade to finish the job. The main love story is how the composer's American agent steps in to try and seduce her into succumbing to both his charms and to the lights of Paris. Meanwhile, the Hollywood blonde set to star in the flick ("My first dramatic non-swimming role.") is dissatisfied with the screenplay and has the movie changed into a musical about Napoleon's Josephine, hiring her own lyricist to turn the Tractor themes into pop songs.

Originally Kaufman teamed up with his wife, Leueen MacGrath, an unsuccessful playwright (more popular as an actress) whose main contribution was to help write the leading lady's role. But during rocky out-of-town tryouts the two were fired... or quit... and replaced by producers Cy Feuer and Ernie Martin with the era's premiere script doctor, Abe Burrows. The three share equal billing for the very funny book that makes communism the butt of every joke that isn't aimed at Hollywood. When a Soviet official is asked if he knew that the great Russian composer Prokofiev was dead, he innocently answers, "I didn't even know he was arrested." Another Soviet, trying to locate a higher-up, asks for a copy of Who's Still Who.

While the love song, "All Of You, " was the popular hit, the higher points of Cole Porter's score are his comedy and character numbers. "Stereophonic Sound" is a rousing tribute to the technological advances that overshadowed content in 1950s Hollywood films ("The customer's don't like to see the groom embrace the bride / Unless her lips are scarlet and her bosom five feet wide.") and "Siberia", seemingly an attempt to repeat the success of Kiss Me, Kate's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," is a humorous soft-shoe about the homeland's frostiest assignment. ("When it's cocktail time, t'will be so nice / Just to know you won't have to phone for ice.") The comical anti-love song, "It's A Chemical Reaction, That's All," argues that coupling is merely a case of, "When the electromagnetic of the female meets the electromagnetic of the he-male."

Kate Marrily's deadpan delivery as Comrade Ninotchka nails every laugh and she makes a smooth transformation from by-the-book official to a love-happy, degenerate pleasure-seeker. As the agent who woos her, Kevin Kraft has a rather thankless leading man role that consists mainly of feeding straight lines to the more colorful characters and singing the score‘s least inspired material, but he delivers understated charm and sings with an attractive light baritone.

The trio of Jody Cook, Carl Danielson and Jason Simon are great fun and in fine voice playing their low comedy roles as the trio of Soviet officials. Aside from their amusing silliness in "Siberia" and the rousing "Hail Bibinski," the boys also team up for a Cole Porter list song, "Why Should I Trust You?," which was cut from the score before the Broadway opening. Also cut before Broadway was the lightly satirical, "Art"; here sung with power and gusto by T.J. Mannix as the soon to be outgoing Commissar of Art. Neither is vintage Porter but they do make for interesting curiosities.

Oakley Boycott fizzes with old-school musical comedy moxie and a spot-on comic sense as the Hollywood starlet who wants to be taken seriously but not at the risk of losing her sexpot appeal. Tall, lean and sporting wavy blond locks, she seems a campy cross between Marilyn and Marlene, selling her songs with satirical seductiveness.

Silk Stockings may not be a classic, but it represents a classic type of knockabout musical comedy we, regretfully, don't see around much these days.

About Michael: After 20-odd years singing, dancing and acting in
dinner theatres, summer stocks and the ever-popular
audience participation murder mysteries (try
improvising with audiences after they?ve had two hours
of open bar), Michael Dale segued his theatrical
ambitions into playwriting. The buildings which once
housed the 5 Off-Off Broadway plays he penned have all
been destroyed or turned into a Starbucks, but his
name remains the answer to the trivia question, "Who
wrote the official play of Babe Ruth's 100th
Birthday?" He served as Artistic Director for The
Play's The Thing Theatre Company, helping to bring
free live theatre to underserved communities, and
dabbled a bit in stage managing and in directing
cabaret shows before answering the call (it was an
email, actually) to become BroadwayWorld.com's first
Chief Theatre Critic. While not attending shows
Michael can be seen at Shea Stadium pleading for the
Mets to stop imploding. Likes: Strong book musicals
and ambitious new works. Dislikes: Unprepared
celebrities making their stage acting debuts by
starring on Broadway and weak bullpens.